Canadian children's and youth's adherence to the 24-h movement guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic: A decision tree analysis

Guerrero, Michelle D.; Vanderloo, Leigh M.; Rhodes, Ryan E.; Faulkner, Guy; Moore, Sarah A.; Tremblay, Mark S.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to use decision tree modeling to generate profiles of children and youth who were more or less likely to meet the Canadian 24-h movement guidelines during the COVID-19 outbreak. METHODS: Data for this study were from a nationally representative sample of 1472 Canadian parents (Mean(age) = 45.12, SD = 7.55) of children (5–11 years old) or youth (12–17 years old). Data were collected in April 2020 via an online survey. Survey items assessed demographic, behavioral, social, micro-environmental, and macro-environmental characteristics. Four decision trees of adherence and non-adherence to all movement recommendations combined and each individual movement recommendation (physical activity, screen time, and sleep) were generated. RESULTS: Results revealed specific combinations of adherence and non-adherence characteristics. Characteristics associated with adherence to the recommendation(s) included high parental perceived capability to restrict screen time, being a boy, increases in children's and youth's outdoor physical activity/sport since the COVID-19 outbreak began, having parents younger than 43 years old (for adherence to screen time recommendation), having no to little change in sleep duration since the COVID-19 outbreak began, and having parents older than 35 years old (for adherence to the sleep recommendation). Characteristics associated with non-adherence to the recommendation(s) included low parental perceived capability to restrict screen time, decreases in children's and youth's outdoor physical activity/sport since the COVID-19 outbreak began, primary residences located in all provinces except Quebec, low parental perceived capability to support children's sleep, and increases in sleep duration since the COVID-19 outbreak began. CONCLUSION: Our results show that specific characteristics interact to contribute to (non)adherence to the movement behavior recommendations. Results highlight the importance of targeting parents’ perceived capability for the promotion of children's and youth's movement behaviors during challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic, paying particular attention to enhancing parental perceived capability to restrict screen time.